Currently, there is a strong desire for development of a silver halide light sensitive color photographic material superior in sensitivity, sharpness and color reproduction.
There is known, as a means for improving sharpness, a DIR compound capable of releasing a development inhibitor upon reaction with an oxidation product of a developing agent. As is known, incorporation of the DIR compound into a silver halide emulsion leads to improved color reproduction due to an edge effect. When using the DIR compound, however, the development inhibitor released upon color development is leached out from the photographic material and accumulates in the processing solution, leading to defects such that the processing solution adversely retards development.
There have been proposed couplers to overcome such problems, as disclosed in JP-A 57-151944, 58-205150, 60-218644 and 60-221750 and 61-11743 (herein, the term "JP-A" means unexamined and published Japanese Patent Application) and U.S. Pat. No. 4,782,012. These couplers contains a releasable group having properties such that when released from the coupling position of the coupler, the group exhibits developing inhibition and after leached out into the processing solution, it is decomposed to a compound inactive to photographic characteristics. In fact, in the use of these couplers, lowering of sensitivity and staining of a developing solution were reduced, even when large amounts of photographic materials were processed. However, photographic materials containing the coupler described above, exhibited variation in photographic characteristics and deterioration in sharpness and color reproduction during storage, and the photographic performance of the coupler itself was proved to be insufficient in terms of the edge effect and the interlayer effect.